Herb Alpert Quotes

Although there was a point with the Tijuana Brass where we were playing for such huge crowds that I kind of lost contact. At one point, the only connection I had with the audience was with people out there lighting cigarettes.

Selfishly, I make music for me. I like to make music. I like looking for songs. I like working with interesting musicians. I like producing records. It`s something I will always do.

The trumpet was not a lyrical singing instrument.

I like to listed to the adventurous guys - the Coltranes, Miles Davis, the guys who just let it loose.

I`m sure I`ll go back again and record in the digital process.

It`s - as opposed to tape where you have a magnetic tape that`s excited by frequencies that you hit, digital was a process where musical sounds are transferred to numbers and stored as numbers.

When I finish an album and I find myself listening to it in the car, because it makes me feel a certain way, that`s the time to try to let other people know about it.

If you look at a record under a microscope, the high frequencies are short jagged edges... and the low frequencies are long swinging ones are deep bass sounds. When it cut it at half speed, you`re getting more of those on the record.

I never thought of myself as a trumpet player in the traditional sense: I never played in a big band... I didn`t struggle the normal way.

We finally got our big break when Ed Sullivan put us on his show.

I practice every day. I`ve been doing it since I was eight.

I was obligated to do a bunch of concerts and a television show, but something in my stomach was telling me this wasn`t what I wanted to do.

Instrumental music can spread the international language.

I`m an old-timer in the business from the sense that when you do something that you feel good about there might be another person out there who feels the same way, or a hundred or a couple million.

This was during a period when I was producing Brazil `66 records and got infected by Brazilian music.

I like to listen to classical music... I like mainline jazz.

We were like a trial for the digital process, and I found that in that particular timeframe, there were too many problems with it.

There`s something interesting about playing live; you`re in the moment, and I think it would be beneficial.

Clifford Brown was in the jazz circles considered to be probably the greatest trumpet player who ever lived.

I wake up in the morning, I do a little stretching exercises, pick up the horn and play.

You know, the record business is much different than being artist on stage.

It`s very clean. With tape, you get noise.

I was taken in by the bravado and the sounds of Mexico... not so much the music, but the spirit.

He has a method that likens the musician to an athlete, so I do physical exercises designed to keep a musician in shape in order to perform the function, which is to play music.

We always felt that if you do something with quality and integrity, then it`s going to come back to you.

Mexican Shuffle was a turning point of the Brass.

I confess that I listen to my own music for my own pleasure.

The Japanese seem to be a loyal audience.

I don`t think radio is selling records like they used to. They`d hawk the song and hawk the artist and you`d get so excited, you`d stop your car and go into the nearest record store.

The reaction to this album has just been fabulous around the world... and I`ve had offers to perform from around the world and I`m tempted to do it. I`ve got itchy lips.

I find that it`s nice to work with somebody and spin off on someone else`s feelings. You get a little jaded by yourself.

With tape, you capture the impact, but you bring in some other elements. Sometimes those elements are good and sometimes, they`re not.